Chandigarh, Aug 6 Two days after Punjab Congress chief Sunil Jakhar sought strict action against party MPs Pratap Singh Bajwa and Shamsher Singh Dullo, the entire Punjab Cabinet on Thursday also pitched in for the duo's expulsion for their "anti-party and anti-government activities", which they termed as "gross indiscipline".
The actions of the two Rajya Sabha MPs call for immediate and strict action by the Congress high command, said the Cabinet ministers, seeking the dismissal of Bajwa and Dullo for attacking their own government in the state over the recent hooch tragedy.
The ministers, in a joint statement, called for cracking the whip on the two MPs without any laxity or delay.
Indiscipline cannot be tolerated at any time, least of all when Assembly elections are less than two years away, they said, pointing to the MPs' repeated attacks on the state government, including on Chief Minister Amarinder Singh.
Questioning their move of airing concerns about the hooch tragedy, the ministers said the two Members of Parliament had never, during their Rajya Sabha term, bothered to raise any issue of interest to the state they represent.
"Why did they not press for the completion of the ED probe into the drugs issue during the Akali regime? Why did they not protest in the House against the anti-farm ordinances of the Union government? Why did they never speak about the CBI's failure to probe the sacrilege cases?" the ministers asked.
The ministers said that by bypassing all party and government forums to protest against the state government's handling of the hooch tragedy and instead approaching the Governor for CBI and ED inquiries into the case, the two MPs had not only attacked the very basis of democratic governance but had sought to undermine the Punjab Police force, which was effectively cracking down on the liquor mafia.
This is not the way democratic systems and institutions are meant to function, said the ministers, pointing out that a CBI probe was needed only if the police failed to deliver, which was definitely not the case at present.
In any case, they pointed out that the whole of Punjab had been witness to the CBI's total lack of efficiency in investigating the sacrilege cases, which eventually the state police had to probe.
Even the targeted killings were solved not by the CBI but by the state police, the ministers said, expressing full faith and confidence in the Punjab Police's ability to bring every guilty individual to book even in the spurious liquor case.
( With inputs from IANS )